I think the thing that impressed me most about Naples was the contrast between the splendour of its natural surroundings, the elegance and solidity of its buildings, and the dirt, disorder, and squalor in which the masses of the people live. It was early morning when I arrived in the city for the first time. The sun, which was just rising over the black mass of Vesuvius, flooded the whole city and the surrounding country with the most enchanting light. In this soft light the gray and white masses of the city buildings, piled against the projecting hillside to the right and stretching away along the curving shores to the left, made a picture which I shall never forget. Some of this sunshine seemed to have got into the veins of the people, too, for I never saw anywhere so much sparkle and colour, so much life and movement, as I did among the people who throng the narrow streets of Naples. I never heard before so many curious human noises or saw such vivid and expressive gestures. On the other hand, I never saw anywhere before so many beggars, so many barefooted men, so many people waiting at the station and around the streets to pick up a casual job. It seemed to me that there were at least six porters to every passenger who got off the train, and these porters were evidently well organized, for I had the experience of seeing myself and my effects calmly parcelled out among half a dozen of them, every one of whom demanded, of course, a separate fee for his services. My experience in Europe leads me to conclude that the number of casual labourers, hucksters, vagabonds, and hunters of odd jobs one meets in a city is a pretty good index of the condition of the masses of the people. By this measure I think that I should have been able to say at the outset that there was in Naples a larger class living in the dirt, degradation, and ignorance at the bottom of society than in any other city I visited in Europe. I make this statement even though cities like Catania and Palermo, in Sicily, which are surrounded by an agricultural population just as wretched, are little, if any, better than Naples in this respect. Very few persons who go to Naples merely as sightseers ever get acquainted, I suspect, with the actual conditions of the people. Most travellers who see Naples are carried away by the glamour of the sunshine, the colour, and the vivacity of the Italian temperament. For that reason they do not see the hard struggle for existence which goes on in the narrow streets of the city, or, if they do, they look upon the shifts and devices to which this light-hearted people are driven in order to live as merely part of the picturesqueness of the southern life and people.